Congress Day 1 highlights: How AI is shaping ad and editorial strategies

By Dean Roper and Neha Gupta

On the first day of Congress, key discussions revolved around the challenges and opportunities AI presents to journalism. Publishers are at the centre of this transformation, with the ability to steer how AI is adopted in their operations through collaboration, transparency, and informed tech decisions.

Here are the key AI highlights from the day:

AI-powered advertising: Navigating a new frontier

In a session titled "Advertising Disrupted - Is AI Reshaping the Playing Field?," industry experts delved into the complexities of generative AI (GenAI) and its implications for digital advertising.

Miso.ai's approach to ad transparency

Lucky Gunasekara, CEO of Miso.ai, outlined the urgent need for transparency in AI-powered advertising. His company's Centinel program tracks AI-driven ads, uncovering troubling patterns such as the use of private user context in political ads without disclosure.

"We're already finding ads that are using personal data without consent. There's a huge regulatory gap," Gunasekara said.

He urged the publishing industry to push back against this, demanding clarity about how platforms use their data and monetise content: "Publishers need to ask, 'What data are you collecting, who are you sharing it with, and what types of ads will be shown on our content?'"

ProRata.ai's publisher-centric solution

Annelies Jansen, Chief Strategy Officer at ProRata.ai, offered a solution that supports publishers. The company works to create fairer revenue-sharing models, ensuring that publishers receive their fair share of the revenue generated from their content.

ProRata's mission is to identify source material in content, and ensure that the resulting revenues are shared appropriately between publishers and tech companies that utilise their content.

Jansen acknowledged the overwhelming challenge publishers face in navigating the complex AI landscape, noting that the industry needs collective action to establish clear standards and more transparency in the advertising tech space.

"We want to help make it easier for publishers to navigate AI, not add to the complexity," Jansen emphasised.

The case for industry collaboration

Both Gunasekara and Jansen agreed that the lack of open standards in AI and advertising is slowing down progress. Gunasekara pointed out that publishers must move quickly to self-regulate to avoid falling behind tech giants, who are moving fast.

Gunasekara: "Publishers have leverage - they can demand answers about how their content is used and what data is being collected on their audience."

Jansen underscored the importance of collaboration in this space, explaining that collective action is essential to establish standards that protect publishers' control over their content and data.

Newsroom AI Catalyst: Empowering publishers to integrate AI

At last year's Congress, WAN-IFRA announced a broad-based accelerator program, the Newsroom AI Catalyst, for more than 100 news publishers in partnership with OpenAI.

Fergus Bell, Founder and CEO of Fathm, who is one of the lead coaches for the program, shared some of the prototype projects and takeaways from the first 50 teams going through the Catalyst. The program supports over 100 news publishers with tailored AI tools to enhance newsroom efficiency and content quality.

AI solutions in practice

Bell shared several success stories from the first round of the program. One standout example was The Quint, a digital news outlet in India that launched a multi-format bot, NewsEasy, which uses AI to generate news briefs in a Q&A format.

The development cycle was incredibly fast: Just one week to build the prototype and one month to refine and deploy the tool.

This AI bot has already seen great user engagement, with readers spending an average of 6 minutes interacting with the content.

"The feedback from The Quint was that AI-generated summaries were on par with human editors, which helped with internal acceptance and led to more AI projects within their newsroom," said Bell.

Creating custom GPTs to solve real problems

Each newsroom involved in the Catalyst program is asked to think strategically about their needs and test AI solutions using custom GPTs. This allows for a highly tailored approach that fits each newsroom's specific workflow and challenges.

Catalyst encourages experimentation and rapid iteration, with many publishers solving what initially seemed like complex problems within hours, Bell said.

"Some organisations come in with a complex idea that is solved quickly, while others think they have a simple idea that ends up being far more complex than expected," he explained.

Creating a culture of testing and innovation

The Catalyst encourages a culture of experimentation, which Bell believes is key to successful AI adoption. Newsrooms are treated like a "playground," allowing them to test new ideas, refine them, and implement AI tools that enhance content creation and engagement, and discovery.

AI's role in the future of newsrooms: Key takeaways

Transparency in AI-driven advertising:The conversation on Day 1 highlighted the need for greater transparency in how AI is used in advertising - especially with respect to data privacy and content monetisation. Publishers have the power to influence the landscape by demanding clearer standards from tech platforms.

Industry collaboration is key:Jansen and Gunasekara agreed that collective action is essential to create open standards and maintain publisher control over their content and data in an increasingly AI-driven environment.

AI solutions in newsrooms:AI is already transforming newsroom workflows. The Newsroom AI Catalyst is proving to be an effective tool for publishers to experiment with and integrate AI, leading to better content quality, enhanced audience engagement, and more efficient operations.

Testing culture drives innovation:Encouraging a playground-like approach for AI experimentation - where publishers can prototype quickly and test assumptions - helps foster a culture of innovation and accelerates the adoption of AI technologies in the newsroom.

Want to know more about the Newsroom AI Catalyst? Click here

WAN-IFRA Staff

executivenews@wan-ifra.org